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John Cassidy (1 January 1860 – 19 July 1939) was an Irish sculptor and painter who worked in Manchester, England, and created many public sculptures.
Life
Cassidy was born in Littlewood Commons, Slane, County Meath, Ireland, on 1 January 1860. He moved to Dublin at the age of 20 to find work. There he attended art classes at night and won a scholarship to study in Milan, Italy. After two years, he moved to Manchester, England, where he lived for the rest of his life.[1] He studied at the Manchester School of Art in 1883 and taught there in 1887.[2]
He created many public sculptures, especially war memorials, and exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy and in Manchester City Art Gallery. He was for a time assisted in his studios by John Ashton Floyd, a local sculptor.[1] For most of his career, his studio was at Lincoln Grove in Chorlton-on-Medlock.
Many of his works remain in the Manchester district, including examples in the John Rylands Library, Deansgate: a group of three figures representing Theology Inspiring Science and Art (1898), and statues in white marble of the library's founder Enriqueta Rylands (1907)[3] and her husband John Rylands (c.1900).[4] On 7 June 2020, Cassidy's bronze figure of slave trader Edward Colston from 1895 was pulled from its plinth in Bristol by protestors and pushed into Bristol Harbour.[5]
Cassidy died at St Joseph's Hospital in Whalley Range on 19 July 1939 and was buried in Southern Cemetery.[4]
References
- ^ a b Obituary, Manchester City News, 22 July 1939, retrieved 26 March 2008
- ^ "John Cassidy RCA, RBS", Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951, University of Glasgow, retrieved 20 May 2017
- ^ D. A. Farnie, 'Rylands, Enriqueta Augustina (1843–1908)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2006, accessed 5 Jan 2016
- ^ a b Hulme, C. & Nicolson, L. John Cassidy, Manchester Sculptor: Enriqueta Augustina Rylands
- ^ Ross, Alex (7 June 2020). "Black Lives Matters protest: Edward Colston statue pulled down". Bristol Post. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
External links
- Works by John Cassidy at Faded Page (Canada)
- John Cassidy, Sculptor, John Rylands University Library of Manchester
- John Cassidy, Slane Historical Society
- John Cassidy, Manchester Sculptor, Charlie Hulme and Lis Nicolson